Physics Simulation

How could i simulate a Rocket with a specific aerodynamic shape , speed and weight and study the effects of wind on it and calculate the exact amount of its deflection in order to know how should i fire the rocket to hit the target despite the wind flow in the area... ?
any specific software's, GH components, Tutorials, videos, texts or similar studies that could help me anyhow...

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on December 23, 2013 at 2:33am

Hi Sadegh,

I doubt there's any software in the world under $1 million that's able to handle that sort of calculation. Aerodynamics is a very tricky subject, and the faster objects are moving the harder it becomes.

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Permalink Reply by Danny Boyes on December 23, 2013 at 2:39am

It's not like it's rocket science... oh wait, scratch that.

Permalink Reply by sadegh on December 23, 2013 at 3:45am

Hi there dear David, Thanx for your reply...

That's something i didn't expect to hear! i didn't think it would be such a complicated subject, but actually i'm not looking for precise and totally correct answers, i just want to have a general image of what will happen to a moving object in the air under wind force, so i thought maybe GH and components such as kangaroo could help me out with it a little...

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on December 23, 2013 at 5:20am

Well if you don't care about turbulence and drag and vibrations and coriolis forces then maybe you can use Kangaroo. It's probably possible to assign a gravity, wind and propulsion force to an object and see what happens to it over time.

However if you want to simulate something that goes as high as a rocket, then you may have to take a spherical earth into consideration.

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Permalink Reply by Daniel Piker on December 29, 2013 at 8:35am

Actually, I think Coriolis forces will work fine in Kangaroo, since it is just a way of accounting for a rotating reference frame. There are loads of named "effects" and forces in physics which emerge naturally from Newtonian mechanics without needing to add any special treatment for them in the engine - things like resonance, centrifugal force, tidal forces and so on.

Permalink Reply by Daniel Piker on December 29, 2013 at 8:21am

essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful

George E.P. Box

Any computer simulation necessarily abstracts away some properties and behaviours of the real world. Practical limitations of computation time, as well as our incomplete understanding of physics mean we can never simulate anything exactly.

Which simplifications are allowable while keeping the model relevant depends what you are using it for.

I think this quote (usually attributed to Einstein) describes it nicely:

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler

Things like gravity due to a spherical earth, thrust, mass distribution, vibrations, orbits, and linear wind and drag can be simulated in Kangaroo, and I think these could be enough to explore a lot of key concepts and develop some intuition for them, maybe by trying modelling things like gravitational slingshots. If you make a start on this and have some more specific questions I'll be happy to help further.

As David points out, aerodynamics is a hugely complex field in its own right, and Kangaroo does not currently simulate fluids, and I don't have plans to add them any time soon.

Finally, I'd recommend maybe also taking a look at Kerbal Space Program.

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